


The New Albion Radio Hour Special: The Great Fitzgerald

by MeechiMon



Category: The New Albion Radio Hour: A Dieselpunk Opera - Shapera, 文豪ストレイドッグス | Bungou Stray Dogs
Genre: 1920s, AU, Character Study, Civil War, Crossover, Dieselpunk, F/M, Gen, Multi, Other, Revolution, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-20
Updated: 2018-04-09
Packaged: 2019-01-20 10:20:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12430758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeechiMon/pseuds/MeechiMon
Summary: You can keep your thieves and super soldiers and rebel leaders; there's another figure just waiting to bear its heart out upon this radio play. Another tale of loss and love and ruin; he held no chance up against this fair city. New Albion is a beast that chews up and devours; what goes around comes around and nothing ends short of tragedy. A special, just for you, dear listener, to tie all of this together. So, without further ado, let's get going, for while we wait for time, time waits for no one.





	1. blues

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I do not own Bungou Stray Dogs nor do I own New Albion Radio Hour. All characters and settings and worlds belong to their respective owners. Feedback would be nice, but it's not necessary. Without further ado, I hope you enjoy this story!

_"Blues were written because of wars, he was certain, for there was much to be blue about when the war takes its losses."_

* * *

__There was a green light.

            If he peered through his crisp, clean windows and looked just above his iron-wrought balcony, tilting his head just to the left, Fitzgerald could discern a small, but prominent, shimmering green light somewhere far-off in the distance, emitting a cool but welcoming sight. He wasn’t quite sure when this light had made itself first known, or when he had even first _seen_ it, but Fitzgerald felt like he has been staring at that one, unblinking green light for ages now. There was nothing alien about it, nothing unusual, but it captivated him all the same. He would stare at it some nights, when sleep crept none too soon and the darkness of the room gnawed at the icy fringes frosting around his slowly-beating heart. It was on these nights that he would quietly creep from the bed, careful not to disturb his peacefully-slumbering wife, and—using the wall as an aid--slip out into the cool night air smelling of ash, and gun smoke, and pearly jasmines.

            The nights were never silent; the city never slept. It was about as restless as he was, during those nights he would join it. From a close distance, from the downtown metropolitan arena of clubs and soirees and shows, jazz music blared sonorously. Sometimes, they would play the blues, other times they wouldn’t. Fitzgerald liked the blues; not always, but on nights like those, the blues were a welcomed thing to hear amidst the far-off distance sounds of ricocheting bullets and bomb-basting bombshells. If he was lucky, the bombs would go off at the tempo of the beat, and the bullets would blare with the sound of a weeping sax, a graceful tandem concocted of chaos and crime and torture unseen.

            Blues were written because of wars, he was certain, for there was much to be blue about when the war takes it losses.

            Fitzgerald would sit—didn’t matter where. No one would see him; he would just sit somewhere and let the blue night swallow him whole in violet anonymity, red-eyed and pale-skinned. He would sit where he chose, hum if he so felt, and would stare fantastically at the green light drowned in amongst the waves of neon night-life and city-wide fanfare. Yes, he would train his eyes every night to pinpoint out this one, small flickering dot lost somewhere in the vivacious concrete wilderness that was New Albion at dusk. Sometimes, Fitzgerald might see it, other times not; sometimes he just stared blankly at where he _thought_ it might’ve been but made no active search to dig it out from crepe yellows and vermillion reds. He would just sit and stare and drown himself in jasmines and blues, eyes lost, heart an-aching, and hum shaky.

            But on the nights Fitzgerald _did_ see the green light, saw it like no other against the backdrop of city lights and grizzled billboards, it became his fanaticism. He would stare, jaw set, determined, hum steady, and heart alight. The frosty tinges from which the dark crept were no more, his delirious sleepy self a discarded thing of the past. All Fitzgerald saw was the green light, an endgame, a vision—green lights mean go, so go he must. But go where he to? He didn’t know, but that didn’t frighten him. He felt restless, sure, but not impatient. All good things come to those who wait. Fitzgerald had to wait for that green light, he had to wait for that go, but before he could go, he had to find where he must be, and quick, for while he waits for time, time waits for no one.

            And, while he sat there, humming that steadfast little tune and contemplating his emerald Holy Ghost, he heard it, the smallest sounds of static, the sultry voice of a man long past agelessness and a song long past dead.

            He sometimes, heard the blues.

* * *

 

            It was hard to believe that there was anything else out there waiting for him.

            Outside the comfiest of high-end districts, New Albion was nothing more than a wasteland, buildings decimated or walls tick-tacked with bullets holes fired from non-too-conspicuous machine guns. Streets were reduced to rubble, homes mere ghosts of what they once were. Shops were pilfered, playgrounds destroyed, and grass tramped long dead from the aching feet of bleeding, wounded soldiers and rebels gone suicide. There were skeletons of aircrafts, burning wreckage of tanks, and corpses smoldering in the humid, smoky haze of their destruction.

            New Albion was afire—freedom fighters and civilians alike were unimmune to the ravages of war. It has been ten years—ten cold, blindingly hot years—of political turmoil and fear of totalitarian whiplash. Ten years of absolute fucking insanity, and with which neither side seemed more promising than the other. Rebels and government alike killed and offed civilians with the slightest of ease—there has been an offset of casualties for those caught in the accidental crossfire of bullets and landmines.

            The upper crust was saved from the brutalist of methods, but this did not mean that they were in any less danger than their lower predecessors. Armored police and suicidal freedom fighters would on occasion infiltrate the affluent districts of New Albion. They snuck into parties—crashed, if they got the brass—and shot up a hailstorm of bullets on the pretense that someone, somewhere in that crowd of miscellaneous party-goers, was a rebel in disguise, an insider with some secrets to whisper in some Parliamentary ear, or just a wicked thing out to rob the system for what it has.

            Crime was an especially common thing nowadays; it was how most people got their start. With the government so focused on the war effort, their laws cracking down on organized crime has slipped over the years until it became almost primarily nonexistent. Being someone who has gotten his lucky break from the illegal smuggling of firearms and rare munitions, Fitzgerald knew better than anyone that the government benefitted the most from the initiative of its law-breaking citizens. Bribery, coercion, blackmail—it didn’t take much for them to relent. Corruption of office stemmed from corruption of society…or, perhaps it was the other way around? Not that this particularly mattered to Fitzgerald. The New Albion Freedom Corps (do not be fooled; tis a group used by the standing military, not the freedom fighters themselves) bought his wares, and bought them well; tis not his fault for their corrupt and boondoggling ways.

            Ah, but, if people like Fitzgerald had not intervened, had not become the leading supplier for violence and retribution on both sides of the aisle, may haps this war would have ended a lot sooner. Ten years…

            _Ten years is ten too long_.

            Something brushed against his hand, and he blinked.

            “Darling, you seem distracted; you’ve barely touched your tea. Is everything alright?” inquired a raspy, but gentle, tone of voice.

            Forcing his eyes away from the smoky, gray-looking fog swirling around their lavish garden, Fitzgerald turned his attention to the woman by his side, Zelda, sitting as calm and as graceful as ever if not just a little thinner than he was used to. She looked pale, and it concerned his deeply, but voice not his concern lest he was to face another wrathful lash of the tongue. Over the weeks since, he has gotten used to it, but on morns like these—where the world was deathly chilly and the city was obscured by smog-induced clouds, she stood out like a phantom in a sheet. It sometimes took him by surprise, what he could see, like a green light cutting through a dizzying fog, startling but there.

            When reality reared its ugly head through the mists of Fitzgerald’s self-assured fantasy, he felt like humming the blues, for nothing was bluer than a dream left to shatter by fantastical, startling wretchedness. Blue was the color of hopeless, hapless, helpless melancholy—and there was so much Fitzgerald was helpless, hopeless to control.

            Giving his wife a gentle smile, Fitzgerald grasped her hand and laid it tenderly atop his leg, rubbing his thumb thoughtfully against her stark, white fingers and skin, trying to elicit what little comfort he could from what was not yet phantom and what was once so alive. Feeling the warmth now shared between their fingers, he was self-assured—not lonesome yet; there was another being here with him, transient, ethereal, loving, and that was enough to boost what little inner peace he may have had to harbor since the day of her ailment has become prevalent.

            “I’m fine, my love, just…a little tired.” He answered back accordingly, voice soft, “I’ve been having difficulty sleeping for the past few nights.”

            Zelda knitted her eyebrows, the pale smooth skin of her forehead crinkling like folded paper, flexible and thin.

            “Is it the leg?” she asked, pointing.

            At the mere mention of it, he felt the faintest tickling of an itch creep up along his right thigh and, moving a hand to relieve the sensation by instinct alone, went to scratch at it, only to have his fingers hit hard metal and for his thigh to feel nothing of their presence. The itch remained but the limb to which it was inflicted upon remained not. Fitzgerald frowned, and squeezed Zelda’s hand.

            “It’s…not the leg that’s been keeping me up.” He assured her, feeling irked. That itchy sensation persisted and he knew it was only going to aggravate him the more as time went on, for one cannot scratch the source if the source had no physical existence in the first place. However, if Fitzgerald had any positive spins to place upon this dreadful occurrence, he supposes he would rather deal with an annoying _itch_ than be seize up completely by a burning sense of _pain_ , for nothing could relieve the phantom pain of a limb long since detached, not even miracles, and every time for which he was attacked, he found himself unable to move, a great inconvenience in and of itself, especially when amid doing something else.

            However, the phantom limb pain—chronic though it may have been—was not the reason for his sudden restlessness. There was something weighing upon him, something heavy, an anvil on the chest and a storm in the brain. It was hidden somewhere in the darkness of their room during the late hours of the night; it was in the icy fringes creeping around the outer most edges of his heart. Fitzgerald didn’t know _what_ it was or, rather, he pretended not to know, if that was ever such the case. He liked the blues, but never not for some known purpose other than to drown in them—the same could be applied to unresolved melancholy. Though it hurt, there was an odd serenity to it. The world, once so bright and loud and lively, now dulled out and quieted. People became gray-faced, their voices became hushed, and the city thrums on like a tuneless moan. Colors were muted, sounds distorted, and touch all starved—except for the blues.

            Except for the blues, the green lights, and the feel of that one aching itch now unbearable creeping along his leg. All except for them, and it was enough to convince him that life was too short for the numbing.

            “…sure, honey?”

            He scratched his cheek absent-mindedly. “Yeah, I’m sure. It’s been a couple days since the last attack. They’re becoming by the by a lot less frequent than they have been.”

            Flashing Zelda a disarming smile, Fitzgerald continued. “I assure you that there’s nothing at all to write home about. Speaking of writing…”

            At this, Fitzgerald picked up a half-open envelope, humming a catchy tune as he carefully slipped a thumb from underneath the paper and opened the envelope the rest of the way, making sure not to tear the contents in the process of revealing the treasures within. Pulling out a letter, he gave it a quick once over.

            “From your parents, I presume?”

            He could recognize the Sabre’s handwriting.

            “Hm? Yes. Said it was important for me to read. Why? You’ve never showed an interest in my correspondences before.”

            “Consider me curious. It’s no fun being kept out of the loop, ya know? Perhaps I want in on your little secrets.” Fitzgerald teased, brushing his fingers along the side of Zelda’s neck as he chuckled, watching her try to swat his hand away as she held back a laugh of her own. She huffed at him with what he perceived to be her attempt at frustration, but he knew that the endeavor was a pointless one. Zelda was easy to tease, easy to tickle—she’ll laugh at just about anything if given the cause for it. The only reason why she was holding it back so desperately now was that Fitzgerald had remarked upon the behavior during some dinner party a couple weeks back, embarrassing her enough into silence and eventual anger. He hasn’t brought it up since, but the remark had failed to slip from Zelda’s memory. Ever since, she has been quite self-conscious about it, unfortunately, twas also the amusement of her husband as well. He found the notion quite silly, in fact, and reveled in making her attempts to be as difficult as all means possible. Sometimes, it would work—he would, eventually, succeed in making her laugh. Other times though, Zelda would stomp out the room in mere frustration, leaving him behind to laugh on his own.

            “My secrets are for mine eyes only.” She held out a hand.

            Fitzgerald knew that what she wanted was the letter, but the temptation was too much for him to resist so, like the contrary man that he was, Fitzgerald gave her his hand instead, flashing Zelda a devilishly charming smile. When Zelda retreated her hand, quickly letting go of his, Fitzgerald began laughing happily, Zelda’s cheeks flushing to an all-time red.

            “Francis!”

            This only caused him to laugh louder and, the next thing he knew, she swung a fist into the side of his left thigh, just barely above the knee, catching with enough surprise to stop laughing entirely. Now, Zelda’s punch hurt none—she was a fragile thing, barely any muscle left—but this didn’t stop Fitzgerald from _pretending_ that he got injured, leaning over and gingerly massaging the point of contact, pouting in a somewhat childish fashion.

            “Hey, now, that’s my good leg you hit.” He whined, looking at her. “Ya could’ve broken it, ya know?”

            She rolled her eyes. “You must be more fragile than you appear if your leg gives out with such a flimsy-feeling punch. Walk it off.”

            “You are a cruel mistress you are.” He said quietly, pretending to grumble but betraying a smile just enough for Zelda to see.

            She didn’t see it; instead, she gave him a haughty huff.

            “Scottie never complained.”

            At this, his smile vanished. “S…Scottie?”

            “What, has the punch to your leg rattled your brain too?”

            “I…no, no.” Fitzgerald quickly denied, sitting up. “I…I just didn’t expect you to bring up Scottie now of all times.”

            “Why wouldn’t I?” She looked annoyed. “I’m her mother; of course, I’m going to bring her up. What, is there a crime against that?”

            The itch came back; he went to go scratch. Fingers clawed at nothing but metal and an eye winced.

            “Francis, don’t do that, the metal makes a horrendous screech when you do.”

            “Ah…yes, my bad, I am…still getting used to this thing.”

            “Are you alright?” Zelda’s annoyed tone made way to worry. “You look out of it.”

            _I do?_

            “It’s…it’s nothing. Just, an itch.”

            She looked ready to say something, but before she could even open her mouth, the door beat her to it.

            “Sir,” greeted the servant, eyes fixed on Fitzgerald, “The Freedom Corps representatives are here to see you.”

            “Oh?”

            _I hadn’t expected them to arrive so soon…_

            He looked around, blue eyes roving.

            “It fell over.”

            Fitzgerald watched as Zelda picked up his ornate-looking cane from off the ground, and handed it him, looking grave. It was apparent that their conversation was far from over, but he welcomed the intrusion for when it had occurred; the icy fringes from around his heart were starting to grow again.

            “Thank you, my dear.”

            Giving her a kiss on the cheek, Fitzgerald steeled himself to stand, praying that the metal contraption didn’t give way and cause him to fall over; he has gotten better by even now, he made the occasional fall. Once feeling properly prepared to deal with an utter failure, he heaved himself upward and stood, leaning on the cane for extra support and placing all the pressure into his one usable leg. Gaining a good balance, he was quite relieved (and quite proud) that he has yet to crash onto solid ground, welcoming the stroke of luck with a little more relish than usual.

            “I should be back soon; these meetings tend to not be very long.” He informed Zelda, moving about and stretching his legs. “The damn fools don’t know what they’re doing anyways.”

            “Francis…”

            He paused, midway through the held-open door. “Hm?”

            “What about the letter?”

            Silence.

            Turning to Zelda, Fitzgerald gave her a charming, but cold, cordial grin.

            “What letter?”


	2. ashes

  _"Another memory...has turned to ash..."_

* * *

 

           The meeting took place in the drawing room, a large and innocuously dark rectangular space with an adorning fireplace, tall paned-glass windows, and stylish furniture scattered about intermittently. The room had a cozy, lazy appeal to which Fitzgerald found charming and most others considered homely—it was the only room in the house styled in such a way as to attain the feelings of comfortability and relaxation, a disarming of the emotions and a soothing of the brain. The walls were of a rich, deep brown and were framed with a lattice work of gold and bronze; the mantelpiece was of an earthy brown and, through a decorative arch-opening, fire flared a friendly orange glow; a clock was set into the right side of the mantelpiece and a barometer on the left; their inner machinations could be seen at the top in which two panels of the four-remained open, revealing cogs and springs and gears all within. The windows were tall and narrow, double-paned, with a brown coat of paint atop their sills and magnificent cold light spilling through the glass. With Fitzgerald sitting on the couch turned from the windows, he had an indomitably ethereal presence, face obscured by shadow and his silhouette outlined with a harsh white light—he seemed almost otherworldly, and his guests visibly shuddered.

            In this cozy, humble space, Fitzgerald seemed strikingly out of place.

            A silence seized upon them; neither party seemed all too eager to begin speaking, the representatives too intimidated to begin and Fitzgerald too busy admiring the dependable, soothing sounds of the clock’s infinite _tick-tock_. Sound carried well in such a tight-knit room, and he became quite fond of the clock’s natural tempo; it became almost second-nature to him. Unlike the other two men, who were growing ever more increasingly nervous, Fitzgerald was growing ever more increasingly calm—a dangerous state to be in; Fitzgerald liked his calm.

            _Tick-tock_.

            The sound of rustling. One of the representatives, the slightly older of the two, produced a simple-looking cigarette box from out his pocket, unclasped the latch, and held it out towards Fitzgerald, hands slightly a-tremble. Several cigarettes were already missing, leaving little spaces in between the ones that were left, and a sickeningly sweet scent emanating from within.

            “Care for a Papaver Cigarette?” came the impending question.

            Fitzgerald knew it was coming; greetings and meetings always start with an offering of Papaver Cigarettes. It was almost a customary practice.

            Fitzgerald held up a hand and gently pushed the proffered box away. “No thank you; I have my own.”

            As if to accentuate his point, Fitzgerald pulled out his own cigarette box: a decorative piece of art emblazoned with the initials of F.S.F gilded in gold, the box being of a lustrous bronze. The representative with the much simpler-looking box seemed almost embarrassed as he pulled away, nodding, “I see…very good. Um…where did you…?”

            Taking out a cigarette, Fitzgerald intercepted, “Got it specially made. Imported from the East—well, the design was made in the East. Ya see, the bronze was mined from the Tigris Euphrates Valley and the gold came in a shipment from Africa. The mold and everything else was all put together in Beijing, China.”

            “Ah…and the manufacturer is…?”

            “Myself, of course.” Fitzgerald lifted the cigarette to his lips and brandished a fancy-looking lighter.

            The representative looked appalled. “You?”

            “Why, who else?” Fitzgerald chuckled and lit his cigarette, light in the bright morning glow.

            An uncertain silence.

            One of the representatives coughed unnaturally as the other silently pulled away two cigarettes from the rather simple-looking cigarette case, sweat perspiring on his brow. Fitzgerald leaned back and crossed his legs, draping an arm lazily over the back of the sofa as the sweet smell of TanSans hit him from afar. He winced slightly at the scent, but said nothing and, metaphorically, turned the other cheek.

            “…so…”

            Fitzgerald lifted his eyes towards the younger-looking gentleman, and the smaller man began to redden at the cheeks.

            “…yes?” Fitzgerald asked.

            “You…wanted to see us?”

            “Ah,” Fitzgerald said, as if he had forgotten, “yes, that’s quite right. Yes, I did call you here for more than just a talk and cigarettes.”

            “…and, that reason is...?”

            “Hold on, let me gather my thoughts.”

            The young man grew rigid, and an impatient look flashed across his face. “Sir, we’ve been here for more than a good five minutes. Certainly, you’ve had enough time.”

            The older representative paled.

            “My thoughts were on my cigarette and the smoke that it billows. I can only think of so many things at once, old sport,” Fitzgerald replied calmly, gray air blowing past his parted lips. He closed his eyes as he took another inhale of the cigarette, letting the ashy tang of rotten tobacco drown his soul and fill his lungs, time marching on with the doleful drum of the ceaseless clock.

            _Tick-tock._

            After a momentary silence, Fitzgerald continued.

            “I heard the project was a failure.”

            The representatives tensed up in a state akin to frightened animals, as if they got caught in the glaring headlights of Fitzgerald’s oncoming car, flashing an illumination they didn’t wish to see and didn’t wish to know. The older representative wiped his perspiring forehead with a faded-looking handkerchief and the younger one fidgeted in his seat, as if he wished he could be anywhere else at that exact moment. Fitzgerald looked at them through one open eye.

            “Is this true?”

            The representatives looked nervously about, not meeting Fitzgerald’s singular gaze.

            “…in certain terms, yes,” said the older-looking one.

            Fitzgerald raised an eyebrow.

            “And, those certain terms would be?”

            The older representative coughed. “…well, we’ve only had…one success…”

            “Just because you’ve won a battle, doesn’t mean you’ve won the war. One success out of hundreds? Thousands? How is that – in no certain terms – a failure?”

            At this point, the younger man joined in.

            “One success is better than nothing at all. We were lucky to have someone – anyone – survive the surgeries as well as he did—”

            “ _Get it up,_ ” Fitzgerald suddenly sang, his voice an unnatural perk, “ _step it up, grab a gun and settle it up._ ”

            The representatives paled as Fitzgerald persisted.

            “ _Enlist, get with the plan ‘cause Freedom Corps will make you a new man._ ” He stopped and gave a razor-sharp smile, cutting them to pieces in his head. “Isn’t that your little chime? It plays everywhere on the radio, ya know. Can’t go anywhere without it blaring in my ears. You gotta couple boys out there trying to sell it too, claiming poor drunkards at bars and any other man caught down on his luck. You’ve had many participants, enough to take on an army of any size and, yet, only one comes out of it unharmed?”

            At this, Fitzgerald paused, and shook his head.

            “Unharmed…” He huffed.

            “...sir?”

            It was the young man.

            “Ah,” Fitzgerald said, looking up, “it’s nothing…just wondering why all my funding went to damn waste.”

            “I assure you, the money was well used—”

            “The money was wasted on catchy radio chimes and that man’s dinners. Tell me, am I more machine than he is?”

            The older representative winced, but the younger man – an ignorant fool, no doubt – only huffed.

            “Trust me, sir, he went through more hell than the all the rest of us combined. We gave him just rewards for his suffering.”

            “And, all I got were excuses for mine.”

            “Don’t be so absurd. A dent in your personal finances is nothing compared to the agonies of the iron behemoth. You probably wouldn’t survive half of what he went through.”

            The older representative smacked the side of the younger man’s leg in the vain attempt to keep him quiet. Fitzgerald merely laughed and shook his head.

            “You act as if I’ve never suffered before.”

            “We’ve all suffered; it’s a war.”

            “You look quite well-attached to me.”

            As the younger man was about to retort, Fitzgerald silenced him with the sudden heavy-weighted thud of metal against glass. Resting what seemed to be an innocuous leg atop the table betwixt the two, Fitzgerald raised the ends of the pants to reveal not skin, but shiny gold in its place. Seeing the younger man’s face pale at the solemn realization, Fitzgerald continued with an odd air of diffidence.

            “Got this one tailored made. The bolts are topped with diamonds, and the lining between each individual golden plate is encased in silver. The last one I had was a hollowed-out piece of oaken red with all gears and machinations inside to help it function. I was quite fond of it actually; smoothest piece of work good money could buy. Unfortunately, it wore down after a couple of months. I have to constantly replace them and, let me tell you, it isn’t cheap to get a whole leg made of gold.”

            The younger man looked up, wide-eyed. “…a whole leg?”

            Fitzgerald nodded and smiled. “A _whole_ leg,” he said, putting emphasis on the middle word. He paused for a moment. “Well…not all of it. Just a little bit of the thigh left from when it was blown clean off. You can still see where the machine attaches to the flesh. It looks all clean now, stitched-up and scarred a little, but clean. You should’ve seen it when it was fresh, though. What a sight!”

            The man was starting to pale as Fitzgerald continued blithely.

            “There was a lot of blood, of course; that’s given with any wound one receives at war, but it’s not the blood I remember. Nor the pain. It was the sight of my once former leg now sitting prettily several feet away from where my body was toppled. Well, not _prettily_. It was relatively well-intact. Singed a little from the bomb, I suppose. Ya know, there something’s surreal about seeing one of your limbs lying dead on the ground, no longer attached to your living form – and, can I just say that I have never imagined bone to be _that_ color of white? It’s a very unique shade. I suppose it must from all that blood and tissue, which I found to be quite stringy when torn up…”

            The younger man’s face bore a rather nauseous-looking expression by the time the older representative interrupted Fitzgerald midway through.

            “I-I think we’ve gotten quite off topic, sir. Perhaps we ought to return to the discussion at hand?”

            “Ah, yes, you’re right, of course, silly me. I do so get carried away when talking of such fond memories—”

            “ _Hell,_ ” muttered the young man, face a gross amalgamation of terror and sickness.

            _Not one for war stories, I see,_ Fitzgerald thought, _and how dare he accuse **me** of softness!_

“May we please continue?” asked the older representative.

            “I was just about to get to it, old sport.” Fitzgerald shrugged his lame leg off the table and leaned forward with his chin resting atop the back of his palms, pressing all his weight onto the sturdy cane. “I wish to see this iron behemoth for myself.”

            The older man paused.

            “You…wish to see John O’Brien?”

            “No…”

            Fitzgerald smiled.

            “I wish to see your _success_.” 

* * *

 

            As soon as a plan had been made for Fitzgerald’s inspection of the government’s new ware, the representatives had left the house, both much too appeased to be out of the other man’s intimidating presence. Fitzgerald watched them go with a leering eye, then looked at the rising bits of wispy smoke pouring out the ash trays alongside the seats. He could still detect the faintest whiff of TanSans milling about the air, and the singular stream of tobacco waved not a single ounce of the mind-numbing poison. He would have to air the room, it seemed, or find some stronger pollutant to cover it up. The last thing Fitzgerald wanted was for the room to reek of the shit.

            _How annoying_ , he thought to himself, as the gentle crack of the friendly chimney fire caught his attention.

            _Ah, that’ll clear the scent out, just need to add some kindle…_

            Fitzgerald, picking himself up without yet another incident, limped on over to the fire with his teeth set in a painful grind. His bad leg had started to stiffen, and the aching pain of a running inferno set course down its imaginary length. His face pinched in a scornful scowl as he stood right before the mantel, hand in a pocket and eyes glowing from the glare.

            He stood there momentarily, looking at the flames, before procuring from the depths of his pocket…a letter.

            _What letter?_

He threw it down into the fire and, as he watched every piece of it turn into ash, the pain along his phantom limb began to cease and his expression began to lift. Inch by inch, ash by ash, Fitzgerald’s scowl turned more relieving.

            When the last bit of the letter disappeared to all eternity, he murmured to himself, with an odd sort of saddened relish:

            “Another memory…has turned to ash…”

            _Tick-tock._


End file.
